Knock Knock....

No this isn't a joke....

I have just had an interesting conversation with a work colleague and wanted to see what any of the SV forum think.

I occasionally get a knock off the front end when going through town over bumps. They aren't particularly big bumps as I remember. The forks have not fully compressed by any means.

My colleague suggested it may be the steering head bearings as this is what I described

"occasionally it will knock over a bump in the road, once or twice it has felt like the front wants to tuck as I lean it over into a turn"

He had the same thing with his ZX10.

My SV has just over 10K on the clock and hasn't had a particularly hard life. It's an SK3.

Any thoughts on this appreciated.

Cheers

Mine does this too. Its an 01 with 11k on the clock. I presume the head bearings are going??

i had a k3 650 and it didnt knock but loads of ppl have had this on their 650 but couldnt find anything wrong.

I think its due to the budget suspension, and the knock is the sudden compression of the forks...the SV forks dont have great damping, so I dont think the action is super smooth.

If its head-bearings, there might be some sort of notchyness when riding slowly through town and stuff?

Get the front end off the ground and give the handlebars and good tug in all directions. If theres any movement, its the head bearings. Step one, tighten them up. Step two (if step one dosnt cure the problem)....replace them

Matt

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Cheers Matt, you've just given me a good excuse to go buy a front stand

[jambo]

A Front stand won't help you any, You'll need an NWS / Abba and some way of lifting the front of the bike (bottle jack and piece of wood under the engine for instance). At a push a mate can lift the bike on the side stand and rear wheel so the front wheel is off the deck. Grab the front forks, you should be able to move them smoothly and freely from full lock left to full lock right. You should also be able to pull and push them and not have any free movement toward and away from the bike.

Notchiness = shot bearings
Slack movement = loose bearings

If this checks out fine then it's just a "clunk" noise made by the forks

[northwind]

People blame all sorts of things- the headlight, the gauges, the forks themselves, the calipers and discs, and the head bearings. Mine stopped doing it after I changed the fork oil for thicker stuff, so I'd say that in my case it was fork internals. But, maybe not in yours. Mine still has a knock in fact, even though it's got no SV parts, but it's the mudguard now

What I hate, absolutely hate, is the people who say with total confidence "It's the head bearings, just tighten them up", because if it's not the head bearings, and you tighten them up, you'll have a knock and overtight head bearings Nobody's done it in this thread, it's more an SV Rider thing, but I thought I'd get my rant in just in case

[dizzyblonde]

i have the Suzy 'knock' and the 'Dave' knock. Suzy just has an odd knock cause hx roads are poop, which I can ignore cause its an Sv knock. And dave is probably a liittle more serious, we tightened the bearing up a liittle before France and the knocking was less, however since France it has slowly got worse and slow manoevres are a bit unsteady. Suzy has standard forks springs oil etc, but, Dave has got heavier oil and better springs so, you could go on for ever I suppose, but Dave definetly has sommat wrong....wonder if the deer did something?

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

wonder if the deer did something?

yea it decided to cross the road at the wrong time and made a right old mess of your downpipe.

[dizzyblonde]

ha ha it missed the downpipe completely!!!! ruined the crank casing with gut acid though